Released in UK cinemas this Friday, Battle Of The Sexes is the story of two public figures – tennis champion Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and former player turned businessman and hustler, Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) – who played an exhibition match in 1973 to prove a point. Riggs’s point. That he could easily beat the top woman player in the world. As history shows, he didn’t get that quite right.

But the film also shows the private lives of the two protagonists. Billie Jean’s marriage to Larry and her eventual coming to terms with her sexuality through a relationship with hairdresser Marilyn Barnett. And Riggs’s often turbulent relationship with his wife, Priscilla Wheelan, played in the film by Elisabeth Shue.

She talks to Filmoria’s Freda Cooper about how Priscilla essentially bankrolled her husband and working alongside Steve Carell, who plays Riggs. And, even though she never as much as picks up a racquet in the entire film, Shue also reveals her personal love for tennis.

Battle Of The Sexes is in cinemas from Friday, 24 November. Read our review here.

Freda Cooper

A lifelong lover of films, I'm at last living the proverbial dream - as a film critic and radio presenter. My blog and podcast, both called Talking Pictures, are award nominated, and I'm heard rabbiting away about movies to my heart's content every Friday morning on BBC Surrey and BBC Sussex. Favourite film? The Third Man. Career highlight to date? Interviewing Woody Harrelson in his trailer at Pinewood!